If you're happy and you know it ...

[austin_dern]

``Comb your pants.''

That's sure what it sounded like was playing on the young-children's-clothes-and-toys-and-stuff store, on the standard mall store speaker with adults pretending to be children singing loudly. I know it can't be, though; that just doesn't make any sense. It has to have been ``clap your hands.'' But I listened, closely once I decoded the sounds that way, and got a bottle of root beer so I could listen longer without seeming to be lingering around a young children's clothes-and-toys-and-stuff store. I tried mighty hard to get the vowels to something plausible and the consonants attached to the right words.

And every time I heard it it sounded like ``If you're happy and you know it comb your pants.''

A Toys R Us seemed to be playing the Mystery Science Theater 3000 tune ``We're A Danger To Ourselves And Others,'' but I must have misunderstood it. I did find some Space Adventure toys including a handsome Saturn V, Apollo Command/Service Module and Lunar Module, Lunar Rover, Space Shuttle Generic, Hubble Telescope, and Mir Space Station toys. They're not accurate in detail, but are quite cheap, fine toys, and how many Soyuz capsules or lunar rovers do you have?

I can't have heard those songs right.

Trivia: During Gemini IV, commander Jim McDivitt lost two kilograms; spacewalker Ed White lost four. Source: On the Shoulders of Titans: A History of Project Gemini, Barton C Hacker and James M Grimwood, NASA SP-4203.

Currently Reading: Beyond the Quartic Equation, R Bruce King.

Comments

[buran.livejournal.com]

I need to go to a Toys R Us, then. The Space Adventures stuff isn't bad. I have the CSM/LM set (they're docked together and standing on the LM legs, on my dresser) but the CM is a Block I instead of a Block II (old rectangular hatch among other mistakes). The Block I never flew on any flight with the LM. Oh well. The Hubble, Mir, and Saturn 5 interest me, and maybe the LRV. About how big are the Hubble/Mir/S5? (I've seen the LRV in stores here).

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

They never get Apollo details right, which is bizarre considering it's the best-documented thing in human history. They don't even get the roll stripes on the first stage of the Saturn V right (even Apollo 13 got it wrong, somehow) ... still, I can take it.

The Hubble and Mir and Shuttle are somewhere around 1/144 scale, I'd say. The Shuttle at least is about six inches long. No orbiter name on it. The Hubble is designed to specifically fit into a little post in the cargo bay; Mir is a separate stand but looks pretty close to the old 1/144 model I had.

The Saturn V I haven't assembled yet; I think it's going to come out to a bit over a foot tall, so call it about 1/300 scale. The three stages come in separate pieces, but you can't take the escape tower off and remove the Apollo Command and Service Module from the top of the S-IVB stage.

[buran.livejournal.com]

It's really common for Saturn 5s to have the wrong markings on them.

In the original Star Trek episode Assignment Earth, a Saturn 5 is shown and described as an ICBM -- which amuses me greatly because the Saturn, while using elements from missiles (like Redstone fuel tanks in the Saturn 1B) was the first US manned launch vehicle that was not developed directly from an ICBM.

I investigated and was able to pin down the rocket, from the date the episoe was aired and from data on Apollo tests, as being the first all-up Saturn 5 launch (Apollo 4) but of course no one was on board.

The episode used some launch footage as well as onboard rocket-cam footage of the interstage skirt (between the first and second stages) separating. The S-1C is visible in the background of the segment if you look closely.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

It's been a long, long while since I saw the Trek episode, but I thought the Saturn V used there was meant to be the first element of an orbiting nuclear platform ... calling it an ICBM would be a bit of an understatement ... it would be ironic in a way Blue Gemini wasn't quite for one or more to become military assets ...

Just about all the on-board footage of Saturn V launches comes from Apollo 4; I forget the details exactly (they're surprisingly hard to pin down) but I believe the film pods from Apollo 6 were lost at sea and didn't wash up for a few years. Actually the state of stock footage derived from Apollo launches and splashdowns is surprisingly limited, between film stock that was just lost to mishap and that for which the pictures just didn't come out well (and oddball cases like -- I believe it was Apollo 15 -- where one of the landing parachutes didn't open, making the film too distinctive to use for a generic splashdown scene). I'm amazed the Spacecraft Films DVDs could be so nearly oppressive with content.

[buran.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty surprised the missing-chute film hasn't showed up somewhere. However, those DVDs are pretty good (if you're thinking of the ones I am) and have a lot of obscure stuff, including tank-cams showing how fast the tanks drain (it's scary!).

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

We are, yeah. I've only got the Gemini and the Saturn I/I-B DVDs, including the bizarre things like the tank cameras. They had an entire disc full of nothing but the Apollo 7 launch ... even for a sometimes model-builder and a Wally Schirra fan that's getting to be a bit excessive.

[buran.livejournal.com]

Oh, and there was a lot of concept work done on the idea of militarizing Apollo hardware, including crazy stuff like a legless LM used as a satellite interceptor!

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think Apollo Derivatives is where all the people who had insane ideas went when they found out there wasn't going to be a World War II-style demand for insane ideas to implement in a hurry.

My favorite anti-satellite weapon is a can of black paint ... which would block solar panels, certainly, but also screw up the heat radiation systems and let the satellite fry itself in a pattern that -- if you ignore the satellite-killer sneaking up on it -- would look like an ordinary if frustrating system failure.